Missylin, I can vouch for for the Sample Gardens as Linda is in my daylily club. She grows very healthy plants and her garden is beautiful. The plants she sells are grown in another location but she keeps them looking in the same condition as her garden at her house. I personally have seen her plants in ground and you can rest easy. Go ahead and order it. Tell Linda that Dawn Mason sent you.

I love those tiles! I found several things, especially the light, changed the way any tiles looked in my kitchen. My advice would be to try several different ones and see how they look in your space. I have soapstone w/ white shaker cabinets and thought I wanted a light grayish backsplash. Turns out there is so much green in my soapstone that the gray did not look good at all, one very gray tile even looked baby blue. I wound up going with a sage green subway from Winchester. I was able to see all their colors locally and choose the one which we thought worked best. Good luck.

MizLizzie I don't have a ventilation hood-well officially, I put it in after the kitchen was completed. I had to keep down to under 400 cfm. This is the Broan evolution 3. It runs up to 350 but will boost to 450- therefor had to be added ex post facto. It is pretty nice -although like most lower cfm- it only has a single fan on one side. Can't wait to see your picture choices!

Natural stone comes from Mother Nature's quarry, which is full of variations. Take up quality control with her on the variation. Buy double. Or else go buy whole slabs of higher quality marble and have the slab fabricator cut them into squares. Then use an old fashioned mud bed to set them into like the old robber barons used to do for their real mansions. Thinset Chinese marble isn't going to give a mcmansion the same look. Not by half.